'Cold caller pestered me into buying £6K of shares in Paragon Time Trading': TONY HETHERINGTON on the 'Netflix of watches' and its boiler room scam

Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below.

Mrs I.B. writes:I was cold-called in August by Incrementum Funding and told shares in Paragon Time Trading would be an excellent investment. I was dubious, but after a number of calls I was persuaded to invest £6,000.

The salesman kept calling, wanting the money before the end of September because there was a dividend due. Needless to say, I have not received it. I was interested to read your article saying the company could not legally sell these shares to certain people.

I am 86 years of age, a widow, living in a council house, and my only income is the state pension. I have never invested in shares before and my small savings are now sadly depleted.

Tony replies: I warned against this scam twice in August, at just about the time you were first called. So I am sorry you missed the alarm bells and may now have lost the £6,000 you invested.

Incrementum Funding, run by 29-year-old Timothy Sandhu from Croydon in South London, was illegally selling shares. It has no licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, and although no licence is needed to sell shares to people who are rich enough or sufficiently experienced to stand the risks, you fall a million miles outside those exemptions.

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The shares Sandhu and his mates were flogging over the phone were in Paragon Time Trading Limited, a new company set up by Richard Ludgate, 31, and registered to his address in Sanderstead, Surrey.

Ludgate’s plan was to raise £1.8million by selling three million shares at 60p a time. The cash would be used to buy luxury watches which he would rent out to people.

The share offer document bearing Ludgate’s signature claimed the rental scheme was already 60 per cent subscribed by existing customers. He told investors: ‘Paragon Time has the potential to become one of the first and leading hire specialists in the luxury watch market, and become the UK Netflix of watches.’

Really? The truth is the whole scheme was riddled with false claims and law breaking. Nobody likes to invest in a company with just one director, but Paragon seemed to have two.

The offer document named Samuel Tyler as the director in charge of marketing, yet Companies House has never heard of him.

While the same document assured investors there would be no fresh shares sold, which would dilute their investment, it later contradicted itself and warned this was exactly what might happen.

Share sales boss Sandhu assured me he was only selling the scheme to ‘angel investors, high net worth individuals and sophisticated investors.’ This was false when he told me, and your own experience proves it yet again. You have little money and never bought shares in your life.

I had hoped the Financial Conduct Authority would spring into action in August and stop the illegal sales. It failed to do so, and at the end of September I described Paragon and its watch scheme as a ticking time bomb.

Well, it is about to explode. Ludgate is planning to put Paragon into liquidation, and one investor says he has been informed the company has no assets.

I told Ludgate how you had been ripped off, and asked him whether he would refund your money. He replied: ‘I have no comment to make.’

He blamed The Mail on Sunday for ruining his business. He told me: ‘Please be advised that Jamie Taylor of Begbies Traynor has been appointed to liquidate the business due to the breakdown in investor confidence caused by your articles.’

Sorry Richard, but investors were conned by your false claims and by the illegal marketing operation run by your pal Tim Sandhu. Our articles just tore away the veil of lies. Your latest statement is false too.

A spokesman for liquidation firm Begbies Traynor told me last Wednesday that Jamie Taylor is not even proposed as the liquidator. He explained: ‘At present the company is not in liquidation.’ He added: ‘The resolution that the company be wound up voluntarily will be considered by members on the decision date, December 22.’

Begbies assured me that if the liquidation is approved, ‘all comments from investors have been noted and will form part of our investigations’.

Sandhu did not respond to invitations to comment, so where investors’ money has ended up remains to be uncovered. But Begbies’ staff will not be alone in investigating.

After saying initially it did not have sufficient evidence, Action Fraud has finally called time on Paragon and sent a file to the City of London Police. It in turn tells me it is in the hands of a ‘fraud team’.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.

'Claims' conman is jailed

A compensation claims conman who threatened to sue me has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to defraud. George Burbidge, 57, of Milton Keynes, admitted cheating 679 customers of his company Verity Claims, telling them if they paid £495 he could reclaim money they had paid to dodgy solar panel firms.

His business partner David Sperring, 60, of Solihull, was also sentenced to three years in prison at Aylesbury Crown Court last Monday. Both were disqualified from acting as company directors for seven years. The court heard they have repaid £336,105 to their victims.

The prosecution was brought by Milton Keynes Council Trading Standards Department, which found no claims were ever pressed. Manager Sue Crawley said: ‘This was a serious fraud.’

I warned last July that Burbidge was also contacting victims of carbon credit investment scams, saying he could claim compensation. In addition, I revealed he had also been behind a rip-off land banking business.

When I questioned Burbidge, he warned he would ‘take the appropriate steps through the courts’ if I libelled him.

But since then, it has been Burbidge who has found himself in the dock.